Family Reunion: Murray
A Quick Overview of my work under this surname
This surname can be found among my Sixteen great-great-grandparents. We have to go that far back to find my first Murray - Rosa Edith Murray (23 Apr 1861 - 19 Nov 1943)
My great-great-grandmother was a Murray, and her grandfather was a Scottish immigrant who came to the newly established United States around 1800. He may or may not have looked exactly like this:
I don’t know much about Thomas Henderson Murray. In truth, I have a single piece of evidence to hang my hat on:
Many unsourced online trees insist that Thomas’s parents were James Murray and Isabel Carmichael, who married in Aberlour, Banffshire (now Moray), Scotland. James and Isabel contracted to marry on 21 Nov 1778 and were married on 10 Dec 1778. This would only give them eight months or so for a 12 Jul 1779 birthdate to fit - but the real reason I am skeptical that these are Thomas’s parents is that there are baptism records for seven children born to James and Isabel in either Aberlour or Mortlach from 1779 to 1800, and none of them are named “Thomas.” The oldest of these children, John, was baptized in Mortlach on 18 Aug 1779, which suggests strongly that Thomas’s parentage lies elsewhere.
I would love to learn more about Thomas’s origins so that if I make another journey to Scotland, I can visit places of more specific interest. If you are a Murray descendant who recognizes this American family, please do get in touch!
That said, I do know a fair bit about Thomas’s youngest son, Aaron Murray.
Aaron and Hannah
Aaron was born in Ohio, probably near Springboro in Warren County. Aaron’s maternal grandparents (Thomas’s mother- and father-in-law) were members of the Hicksite sect of the Quaker faith that had moved west from Pennsylvania to form a community in Springboro. Thomas’s family appeared in nearby Clear Creek Township on the 1820 Census.
Aaron married his first wife, Maria P. Harris, and they had two sons in Wabash County, Indiana, before Maria’s untimely death in 1854 - probably from one of the many outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, or other diseases that decimated prairie towns in those days. Aaron soon remarried the widowed Hannah (Bender) Eby, who had two sons from her first marriage. They had five more children together, the third being Rosa.
Rosa was born within days of the outbreak of the Civil War. The family lived in Liberty Mills, Wabash County, Indiana, just west of Fort Wayne. By the following year, Aaron had moved his family about 300 miles south and west, to Illinois. He enlisted in Company F of the 113th Illinois Infantry at Belmont, Iroquois County, Illinois, on 12 Aug 1862 - the same unit as Hannah's brother, Lyman Bender. Lyman was captured and died in Andersonville prison on 10 Oct 1864; Aaron was discharged at Camp Butler for disability on 27 Oct 1864.
Two years later, Aaron and Hannah named their youngest son Lyman in his honor.
After the Civil War, Aaron and Hannah moved their family to Big Creek in Grant Township, Neosho County, Kansas. Rosa grew to adulthood in Kansas and married Albert Huff in 1883. They farmed in Elsmore, Allen County, Kansas, and had five Huff children. In 1908, they sold their farm equipment, rented the land, and moved to Glendale, Arizona. You may recall an earlier post about that move:
As always, I post twice a week, so if you want regular updates:
Love the phrase "He may or may not have looked exactly like this" 😄